How To Revive Your Outdated Health Company Blog As Traffic Starts to Drop

Picture a once-grand hotel: It opened with buzz, filled its rooms, earned glowing reviews. But then the paint started to peel, the bathrooms leaked, and nobody bothered updating the outlets for modern devices. Now it’s collecting dust and rooms are discounted on Expedia.

That’s… basically what happens to many health blogs. The first 50 or so posts go live in a burst of enthusiasm, but eventually publishing slows. Years later, you’re left with outdated studies, thin explainers, broken links, irrelevant images, and articles with no author or reviewer in sight. Not only does this erode trust with readers, it tanks performance with Google’s algorithms.

At Healthyish Content, we’ve partnered with health companies that have blogs at all stages–established and publishing 30 posts per month, no blog (or even sometimes a domain!) yet, and then the majority somewhere in between. Our starting point usually is a blog that’s a lot like the above–and we’ve learned an awful lot along the way in reviving and re-establishing them.

It’s also especially worth emphasizing that the stakes are way higher in health than other categories—outdated or unreviewed content can actually be harmful. Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines hold medical information to the strictest standards, rewarding content that demonstrates expertise, authority, and trust. Health blogs that aren’t accurate, current, and visibly backed by experts are penalized more harshly. While this playbook applies broadly, it’s built for health and healthcare blogs, where credibility is non-negotiable.

If your traffic is sliding, it’s not because your blog failed—it’s because you stopped maintaining it. Here’s a focused, six-week revival playbook (including a case study with Parsley Health and expert best practices) to turn your neglected archive into a trusted, traffic-driving resource again.

The Blog Revival Blueprint in Action

Before we jump into the six-week playbook, it helps to see what this looks like in action. Over the past few years, Healthyish Content has led full-scale blog revivals for leading health brands facing the same challenge—stagnant traffic, outdated articles, and content libraries that no longer reflected their expertise or authority.

The approach is simple but powerful: Audit everything, identify high-potential posts, merge or prune what’s dragging you down, then refresh and relaunch with expert-reviewed, SEO-driven updates. 

For instance, at Parsley Health, that meant transforming a 150-post archive into a streamlined library of current, credible content—reversing a downward traffic trend within months of launch in mid-2025. For NOCD, a similar audit and content sprint in mid-2023 tripled their organic traffic as updated explainers and mental health guides began ranking again.

Across other clients like Allara and Oshi, the trend is consistent: When health brands modernize and consolidate existing content, traffic lifts, engagement improves, and credibility follows.

The playbook that follows is built from these projects—tested, repeatable, and proven to turn aging content libraries back into trusted, high-performing growth channels.

Step 1: Audit Your Blog (Weeks 1–2)

Before you can breathe new life into your blog, you need to know exactly what you’re working with. That means a full inventory of every post you’ve ever published (yes, even the cringey ones from 2010).

Start by creating a master spreadsheet that lists every article on your site. Then, pull performance data from Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and SEO tools like Ahrefs or Semrush. For each post, record:

• Traffic: How many organic visits it’s getting.

• Keyword rankings: Where it’s showing up in search results.

• Backlinks: Whether credible sites are linking to it.

• Conversions: Any leads, signups, or clicks it drives.

• Quality assessment: How accurate, current, and brand-aligned it feels.
  

Once you’ve got the data, use these criteria to identify high-priority pages (AKA the ones worth refreshing first):

• Ranking opportunity: Target posts already ranking in positions 5–20. They’re close enough to page one to benefit from modest optimization.

• Search volume: Focus on topics with 1,000+ monthly searches, adjusting based on your niche and the value of each visitor.

• Content depth: Prioritize articles under 2,000 words, which may lack depth or topical coverage under Google’s Helpful Content guidelines.

• Keyword difficulty: Look for terms with lower competition (<50 KD, ideally <20) to maximize your odds of improvement.

• Organic traffic potential: Prioritize posts already attracting some traffic, as these tend to respond fastest to updates.
  

​​Once you’ve gathered the data, it’s time to make decisions. When your site’s been around for a while, you naturally accumulate pages that no longer add value to your audience (or search engines). By pruning what’s underperforming and doubling down on what’s working, your site can come back stronger than before.

After pulling traffic data from Google Search Console and backlink data from Ahrefs, sort every page into one of six buckets:

• Keep as-is: These are your proven performers; pages that consistently attract organic traffic, keep bounce rates low, and convert well. As a general rule, if a page brings in 500+ visits and still feels current, leave it alone. Don’t fix what’s not broken.

• Quality review (QR): These pages get some organic traffic but show high bounce rates or low conversions. They deserve a manual review for content quality and relevance. After reviewing, decide whether to update, redirect, or delete depending on what’s holding it back.

• Update/refresh: These are posts with solid bones but outdated information, weak SEO, or shallow coverage. Think of a 2017 “Gut Health Basics” guide that’s still relevant but needs new research, structure, and tone—that’s a quick win waiting to happen.

• Delete (404): Remove pages with no traffic, no backlinks, and no strategic value. Before deleting, review them manually to ensure they don’t contain insights worth repurposing elsewhere. Otherwise, clear ‘em out—Google rewards a leaner, higher-quality site.

• Redirect (301): For pages with little or no traffic but some backlinks, preserve link equity by redirecting to a similar, stronger article (for example, merging “Top Foods for Immunity” with “Best Vitamins for Immune Support”).

• Noindex: Some pages just don’t need to show up in Google search (think tag page or duplicate ad campaign landing pages). Add a no-index tag so they stay live but hidden from search results. (That way, they can still serve a purpose without wasting your crawl budget with Google and diluting your link equity.) 

  
  

Believe it or not, less is usually more in SEO & GEO. Our B2B-focused friends at Animalz found that deleting or merging between 5 to 40% of low-value or weak pages can correspond with traffic increases of 20 to 50% within a few weeks to months!

Done right, this audit isn’t just “housekeeping.” It sets the stage for everything that follows.

Step 2: Build Your Revival Plan & Team (Week 2–3)

Now it’s time to decide what to tackle first and who’s going to do the work. A blog revival sprint is part triage, part renovation, and it moves fastest when you’ve got clear priorities and the right people in place. Here’s how to make it happen.

Prioritize the right posts

Not all content is worth fixing at once. These priorities give you quick wins and restore brand trust while laying the groundwork for longer-term gains. Start with:

• Posts on the edge of winning: Articles ranking at the bottom of page one or top of page two. A small push can bump them into prime real estate.

• High-conversion topics: Posts that may not drive the most traffic but bring in qualified leads or signups.

• Embarrassingly outdated content: Nothing undermines credibility faster than a COVID guide from 2020 still sitting live, or nutrition posts citing decade-old studies.

Assemble the team

Reviving a blog isn’t a solo act. The strongest teams cover these roles:

• SEO/GEO Strategist: This person creates briefs, surfaces the right keywords, and maps content against competitors.

• Editorial Lead: Think of this person as your air traffic controller. It’s the editor who owns the calendar, ensures consistency, and enforces standards around voice, inclusive language, citations, and formatting.

• Writers: Writers execute updates, expand posts, add fresh research, and sharpen the narrative. With the right workflow, a small team can realistically update around 10 articles per week.

• Medical Reviewers: In health, every piece of content should be reviewed by at least one qualified expert for accuracy and credibility (more on this in the next section).

• Designer: The designer updates visuals, swaps out dated stock photos, and builds brand-consistent graphics for your highest-value posts.

Formalize the process

Even the best team stalls without a clear process. This revival sprint works best when every task has a home and everyone knows where things stand.

Start by setting up a tracker in a tool your team will actually use, like Asana, Monday, Notion, or even a humble Google Sheet. What matters most here is visibility. Every post on the update list should move through a pipeline like this:

Audit → Draft → Edit → Expert Review → Design → Publish

That’s your assembly line. Anyone should be able to pop open the tracker and instantly see what’s cooking, what’s stuck, and what’s live. Add a few columns for target keywords, priority level, and deadlines, too.

Step 3: Refresh & Optimize Content (Weeks 3–5)

Now that the plan and team are in place, it’s time to roll up your sleeves. Here’s what to focus on.

Update information

Begin by reviewing all stats, studies, and recommendations, then update them with the most current, credible sources available. Not every article will need sweeping changes, but health science evolves quickly, and outdated citations can undermine trust.

Cut or rewrite sections that reference outdated guidelines, broken links, or terminology that no longer fits your brand voice. The goal is to show readers that your content reflects the current health conversation—and health science tends to move fast and furious.

Expand and enrich

Too many health blogs are littered with 500-word explainers that barely scratch the surface. The fix: Expand those posts into 1,500- to 2,000-word comprehensive guides that actually compete. Benchmark against competitors: If the top-ranking articles are 2,000+ words with FAQs, subtopics, and expert quotes, your post has to meet (and ideally beat) that bar.

Enrichment also means making your content unique and differentiated. The fastest way to lose readers (and rankings) is to sound like every other health site recycling the same facts. Harvard Health and Mayo Clinic already exist, so you’re not going to outrank them by being more generic. Google rewards you when you offer perspectives they can’t:

• Pull in expert quotes to add authority: Quotes from clinicians or specialists give your piece credibility, immediacy, and show you’re connected to real-world practice.

• Share examples or anecdotes that make information more relatable: This is where the right writers make a huge difference. Instead of playing it safe with sterile prose, give your writers the freedom to add context and explain how the topic applies in their own lives. These touches humanize your content and differentiate it from institutional publishers.

• Weave in brand POV or patient stories: Use your platform to highlight what you’ve learned treating real patients, or to showcase how your approach is different. That mix of authority + lived experience is what makes Google (and readers) recognize your content as trustworthy and unique.

On-page SEO fixes

A revival isn’t complete without getting technical details right. For each article, rewrite titles and meta descriptions to include target keywords. Add clear H2/H3 structure, optimize images with descriptive alt text, and implement schema where relevant (like

FAQs or an Article markup) to help search engines better understand and feature your content.

Format for today’s readers (and tomorrow’s AI)

Content now has to perform in two places: search engines and LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude, and even Google AI Overview.. To make your articles easier for the machines to parse and apply GEO.AEO, here are the current best practices to apply to every article you’re updating:

• ToCs: Add a Table of Contents at the top.

• Summary: Open with a conversational takeaway that gives readers the gist in two to three sentences.

• FAQ: Include an FAQ section at the bottom (lean on your SEO/GEO strategist to help generate these).

• Takeways: Drop in bullet-point key takeaways at the end for quick scanning (plus LLMs love answering with bullet points, so make their life easier by generating them already yourself).

• Conversational Tone: Make content more conversational and approachable, include “if/then” statements (for example: If your leg swelling comes on suddenly, then call your doctor right away) and even add some bold text! LLMs reward you for writing the way they respond.

• Formatting: No more long blocks of text! Make things skimmable and engaging by using short paragraphs, plenty of whitespace, and sections broken up with bullet points, callout boxes, or graphics.

Visuals

Outdated stock photography signals low effort and undermines credibility, especially in health where trust is everything. And yes, I know you’ve got stock photos everywhere—everyone does. Buuut that’s the point: It’s an opportunity to stand out!

Ideally, replace ALL generic stock with images that reflect your company’s identity and audience.  Of course, it’d be great if you can use your own photography—shots of your clinicians, product, or real patients. Otherwise, the next best way to do this is applying your brand’s design elements and accents to (editable) stock images. With a reasonable design resource, this can be done at scale and make a huge difference to readers AND in SEO/GEO. 

Also, strongly consider adding infographics or short explainer videos for your top winners to distill complex information into clear, shareable visuals. This was a critical piece of what we did at Parsley, and almost all successfully ranking articles today have these original graphics in them.

Internal links

Think of internal linking as your blog’s circulatory system. Without it, strong posts sit in isolation and can’t transfer authority to the rest of your site. Every time you refresh a post, look for natural opportunities to link to related content—an explainer on gut health could link to an article on probiotics, for example. 

Do the reverse, too: Add links from other posts back to your newly updated content. This strengthens SEO, helps users discover more of your work, and keeps people moving deeper into your content ecosystem instead of bouncing after a single read.

E-E-A-T enhancements

Finally, layer in credibility signals. In health especially, trust is the deciding factor in whether readers stick around and whether Google ranks your content. E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is how you show both audiences and algorithms that your content deserves attention.

Done well, these enhancements make your blog feel more like a digital health publication than a marketing channel:

• Add clickable author bylines with headshots and credentials: Readers want to know who is speaking to them. A byline with a photo, professional title, and link to a full bio turns a faceless blog into advice from a real human with expertise.

• Include “Medically reviewed by” with reviewer bios: This is your clinical seal of approval. Listing the expert’s name, degrees, and specialty not only validates the content but reassures readers that the recommendations are backed by science. Bonus points if it links out to a full bio that illustrates why they’re relevant to the topic at hand.

• Cite authoritative, peer-reviewed sources (and link directly to them): Blogs that only link to other blogs feel shaky. Whenever possible, cite primary sources like PubMed, NIH, CDC, WHO, or well-regarded medical journals. Linking directly to the source shows you’ve done your homework and invites readers to verify.

Step 4: Get Medical Approval Right (Weeks 4-5)

If you’re in health, this step isn’t optional—it’s everything. Readers and search engines alike are looking for signals that your content is trustworthy. Expert review provides that stamp of credibility. Skip it, and you risk losing both audience trust and rankings.

Google has explicitly stated in its search quality guidelines that health content is held to the highest E-E-A-T standards, meaning it must clearly demonstrate expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Without visible expert involvement, even well-written posts are less likely to perform in search or build the confidence your audience needs to take action.

Here’s how to set your blog up for success:

• Choose the right reviewers: Tap licensed clinicians, dietitians, or specialists who are directly relevant to the topic at hand (for example, a fertility article should be reviewed by an OB-GYN, not a general internist). Matching expertise to content strengthens accuracy, and setting the context up front helps reviewers feel invested. When experts know why their input matters and how it will be used, their feedback is sharper and their endorsement carries more weight.

• Make it easy: Don’t dump a 2,000-word article in their inbox and hope for the best. Provide a one-page checklist: “Fact-check the studies, flag outdated recommendations, confirm language reflects current guidelines.” The easier you make the process, the faster and more thoughtful the review.

• Give credit: Add a “Medically reviewed by” line with the reviewer’s name, credentials, and a short bio. Even better, create dedicated reviewer profile pages that explain their background and why their expertise matters for your audience. It’s a trust signal for both readers and Google’s E-E-A-T framework.

• Bake it into the workflow: Waiting until the very end to pull in an expert guarantees delays. Instead, bring reviewers in parallel with editing and design, so by the time content is polished and visuals are ready, expert approval is too.

Step 5: Design & Technical Polish (Week 5)

Now it’s time to make sure it looks, feels, and functions like something readers want to engage with (and Google wants to reward). 

UX improvements

User experience is non-negotiable. A smooth, enjoyable reading experience keeps visitors engaged longer and signals quality to search engines, so don’t forget to address these design basics:

• Ensure your layout is mobile-friendly, since most readers will find you on their phones.

• Use accessible fonts and color palettes to make text easy to read.

• Compress and optimize images so your pages load quickly—slow sites bleed traffic.

Schema and metadata

Technical details might not be flashy, but they’re critical for visibility. Add structured data like Article schema with author and modified date, plus ReviewedBy schema for medical reviewers (to name just a few). Update meta tags and check your sitemap to make sure refreshed content is crawled and indexed correctly.

Conversion elements

Finally, attracting readers is just one piece of the puzzle. Now you need to make sure your blog actually converts them. 

Update CTAs so they reflect your current offers, whether that’s booking a consult, downloading a guide, or signing up for your newsletter. Button copy should be clear and action-oriented (“Book my free consult” beats “Learn more”). A small change in CTR can make a big business difference!

Step 6: Republish, Reindex & Promote (Week 6+)

You’ve audited, refreshed, and polished your content. Now it’s time to put it back in front of readers. Think of this step as the grand reopening of your renovated hotel: the lights are on, the lobby’s spotless, and you want guests to come flooding back in.

Republish with purpose

Update the publish date or add a “Last updated on [Month, Year]” note so readers know they’re getting fresh information. For health content especially, visible freshness builds confidence that your advice is current.

Use Google Search Console to request indexing for updated pages and make sure your sitemap reflects these changes. This helps Google recognize your content as new and re-rank it accordingly. If you’ve merged or deleted posts, double-check that 301 redirects are working and no broken links slipped through.

Promote internally

Treat your revived content like new content. Feature it in your newsletter with “recently updated” framing. Post it across your brand’s social channels to give it a fresh push. And make sure new blog posts link back to refreshed ones, creating a cycle of visibility.

From there, look outward. Pitch major updates to industry journalists or partner newsletters, repurpose key stats and graphics for social, or mention refreshed guides in guest posts and podcasts. A little external promotion goes a long way in turning your revived content into a business growth driver.

Monitor performance

Measure the impact. Track rankings, traffic, and conversions for your updated posts.

Watch for signals like improved time on page or reduced bounce rate that show readers find the content more useful. Celebrate wins internally: A single revived post that doubles pageviews is proof the strategy works and fuel for further growth.

HubSpot’s “historical optimization” project shows just how powerful this can be at scale. They systematically went back through old blog posts and refreshed them—not just cosmetically, but by improving CTAs, updating SEO, and rewriting with current info. As a result, they more than doubled the number of monthly leads from those posts and saw an average 106% increase in organic search views.

Conclusion: Better, Not More

You don’t need more content. You need better content. And that’s never been more true in the health & healthcare space. With intention, process, and expert input, your outdated health blog hotel can become a refreshed, growing icon that drives business outcomes long after the six-week sprint is done. 

And if you don’t want to do it yourself, maybe we can help at Healthyish Content. Don’t hesitate to reach out!

Pro Tips From the Trenches

Once you’ve worked through the full six-week playbook, there are some hard-won tricks that can spell the difference between limping through updates and shipping 10 refreshed posts a week without burnout. 

These tips come straight from Healthyish Content Editorial Partner Amelia Edelman, who’s lived through more than a few blog revivals:

• Batch the work: Have your SEO/GEO strategist build briefs in groups of five to 10. Writers never hit a blank page, and editors can stay ahead instead of playing catch-up.

• Set hard review deadlines: Clinicians are busy. Without a clear 48- to 72-hour review window, content gets stuck in limbo. Position deadlines as critical to keeping information accurate and timely.

• Automate the nudges: A simple Slack ping or project management alert when something moves to “Ready for Review” saves hours of manual chasing.

• Tighten feedback loops: Long email threads kill momentum. Use tracked changes and in-line comments, and give the editor final say to avoid juggling three conflicting opinions on a single headline.

Run a quarterly audit: Check back in on your content performance each quarter and update the top 10 oldest articles. Focus on the ones that are declining or flat.